As you peruse the Indiana Daily Student, you have at your fingertips the most powerful weapon known to humanity. Information.
We are lucky to live in a country that was built upon Enlightenment ideals of rational thought and the protection of certain freedoms and liberties. We have never wanted for information.
We are bombarded with information and opinions ceaselessly from every direction. Sometimes, it is difficult to separate fact from fallacy.
Last month, North Korea made alarming yet unsurprising headlines. It had conducted another nuclear test. This is North Korea’s second in the last three years.
In North Korea, a country defined by its atrocious human rights record as well as the state’s notoriously controlling hand, information is scant. Communication of any sort is likely to come directly from the government, along with nearly everything else.
As threats of military intervention ring hollow with the state, the dilemma in North Korea must be tackled by other means, and it’s clear the world is catching on.
Following the test launch, South Korea restarted its counter-propaganda offensive against its northern neighbors.
The strategy involves placing loudspeakers along the border which broadcast fact-based news, messages critical of North Korean head of state Kim Jong-un, as well as K-pop music.
These unconventional tactics have inspired fear in the North Korean government. Following similar past efforts by South Korea, Pyongyang launched artillery toward the south after demanding a cessation of the broadcasts.
The legitimacy of Kim’s regime rests on the state’s ability to indoctrinate its people with a carefully-crafted ideology promoting loyalty to government above all else and decrying the evils of capitalism.
South Korea’s efforts are eroding this legitimacy, and it’s time for the United States to launch similar efforts to leak counter-propaganda into the north.
In the Age of Information, ideas travel at blistering rates, and even Kim’s all-powerful hand is being challenged.
As information seeps through the cracks of North Korea’s previously impregnable borders, brainwashed North Koreans are able to get a glimpse of the real world.
Increased flow of unadulterated information has not only opened minds, but is also emboldening North Koreans to take real action.
Over the years, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have crossed the borders into China and South Korea, and more are defecting each day.
A study by the Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification confirmed an influence of foreign media.
Of the nearly 150 defectors surveyed, 80 percent had been exposed to South Korean entertainment items.
It seems the best way to combat a regime that has so unilaterally deprived its people of information, the most basic nourishment of the mind, is to continue the work that has already started.
Instead of continuing our policy of nonaction against North Korea or threatening military intervention, we need to do what we can to ensure that this flow of information continues to spread.
The lone weapon capable of turning Kim’s regime upside down does not have any nuclear capabilities. It’s information.
dkilcull@indiana.edu
